Privacy Policy

Guardforce International Transportation (SA) Privacy Notice.

INTRODUCTION
This is the Privacy Notice of Guardforce International Transportation (SA) Proprietary Limited (Registration Number: 2012/193277/07), a private company with limited liability registered in the Republic of South Africa (“Guardforce” or “we”).

Guardforce is committed to protecting the confidentiality and privacy of the personal information it processes. This Privacy Notice explains how we process and protect your personal information.

As a South African registered Company, all our data processing activities are primarily regulated by the Protection of Personal Information Act, No. 4 of 2013 (“POPIA”), as amended from time to time. For the purposes of this Privacy Notice, the terms “personal information” and “process”, are as defined in POPIA.

WHO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE APPLIES TO

This Privacy Notice applies to all persons (both natural and juristic) that Guardforce collects and process personal information from or about, including but not limited to our clients, suppliers and subcontractors, third parties (such as visitors to our premises), job candidates and website visitors (“you”).

PERSONAL INFORMATION
POPIA defines personal information as information relating to an identifiable, living, natural person, and where it is applicable, an identifiable, existing juristic person, including, but not limited to:

  • information relating to the race, gender, sex, pregnancy, marital status, national, ethnic or social origin, colour, sexual orientation, age, physical or mental health, well-being, disability, religion, conscience, belief, culture, language and birth of the person;
  • information relating to the education or the medical, financial, criminal or employment history of the person;
  • any identifying number, symbol, e-mail address, physical address, telephone number, location information, online identifier or other particular assignment to the person;
  • the biometric information of the person;
  • the personal opinions, views or preferences of the person;
  • correspondence sent by the person that is implicitly or explicitly of a private or confidential nature or further correspondence that would reveal the contents of the original correspondence;
  • the views or opinions of another individual about the person; and
  • the name of the person if it appears with other personal information relating to the person or if the disclosure of the name itself would reveal information about the person.

 

WHAT PERSONAL INFORMATION WE MAY COLLECT AND PROCESS

While using our website or engaging with us for the provision of any of our services, you may be required to provide us with your personal information. This may happen when,  for example, you send through an enquiry on a contact form on our website, you contract with us for the provision of any of our services, you submit a job application to us, the collection and processing of your personal information is necessary for the provision of any services provided by us or you, or when concluding a contract with us.

In certain instances, you may also be required to provide us with sensitive information that is classified by POPIA as special personal information. The collection of this information from you, when and if required, will only be collected if it is necessary to achieve the purpose that we are collecting and processing the personal information for.

Some of the personal information that we may collect from you, could include, but may not be limited to:

Clients
  • Identification details such as name, surname, ID/Passport/Company Registration Number;
  • Contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses, physical and/or postal addresses;
  • Financial information, such as account details (if required), credit information (where relevant), and other information required for invoicing purposes; and
  • Any other information that may be relevant and required by us in order to enable us to provide you with our services;
Suppliers and Sub-Contractors
  • Identification details such as name, surname, ID/Passport /Company Registration Number;
  • Contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses, physical and postal addresses;
  • Financial information such as such as bank account details (if required), credit information (where relevant), and other information required for payment purposes; and
  • Background Information (including information received from background and criminal checks for security service providers and personnel);
  • BBBEE information (where required and relevant);
Job candidates
  • Identification details such as name, surname, ID/Passport Number;
  • Contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses, physical and postal addresses;
  • Demographical details, such as race, and age group;
  • Qualification information, CV’s and other personal information that may be requested throughout the recruitment process to assess and consider the job application;
  • Professional body registration information (where you are part of a Professional body or are required to be for the purposes of your profession or job);
  • Previous employment history, employer information, salary information and contact references;
  • Background information (including information received from background and criminal checks and other employment related checks), this may include your biometric information;
  • Details regarding membership to trade unions and other relevant industry bodies where relevant and within the scope of the job vacancy which you are applying for;
  • Financial Information, such as account details and any other relevant information required for the purposes of your employment with us, should your job application be successful, for the purposes of us processing your employment with Guardforce (this information will only be requested where relevant and required).
Other third Parties
  • Identification details such as name, surname, ID/Passport/Company Registration Number (where required and applicable);
  • Contact details, such as phone numbers, email addresses, physical and postal addresses;
  • Any other personal information that we may require from you in order to achieve the purpose for which that personal information is being collected and processed (which will be determined on a case by case basis, depending on the relevant purpose).
Website Visitors
  • When visiting our website, we may collect anonymised data relating to your location and your browser type, browser version, the pages of our website that you visit, the date and time of your visit, the duration of time spent on the website pages and other applicable statistics are recorded by Google Analytics to analyse user behaviour on our website. If this information is collected, no personally identifiable Information will be collected at any point;
  • When you use one of our webforms on our website (such as on our “contact us” page), the personal information we request on the contact form (such as contact details and the nature of your enquiry), once submitted by you, will be stored in the database of our website and processed by us for the purpose of addressing your enquiry.

WHO WE COLLECT YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM

Generally, we collect your personal information directly from you.

In certain circumstances we may also collect your personal information from other sources, such as where this is necessary to achieve the purpose that such information is being collected for.

Generally, the collection of personal information from you and the other sources referred to above is mandatory in order to achieve the purpose for which it is being collected by us (as set out below). We will notify you where the collection of certain personal information is voluntary and not mandatory. The refusal to provide us with the mandatory personal information that we may require, may have an impact on our ability to provide you with our services or our ability to achieve the purpose that the personal information is required for.

 

THE PURPOSES THAT WE MAY USE PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR

We may collect, use, and/or generally process your personal information (including, where applicable and necessary, your special personal information) for the following purposes:

  • To provide you with our services;
  • To comply with all legislative and legal requirements placed on us, which may include, but not be limited to, legislative reporting and document retention periods and where the law requires that information be notified to third parties (such as government institutions or statutory bodies);
  • To conclude or perform a contract with you, or to take any take steps linked to or necessary for the conclusion or performance of a contract with you;
  • To perform general administrative, operational, management and performance functions and activities relating to the operation and running of our business and of our website, and for the purposes of managing our legal and operational affairs;
  • Where necessary, for any purposes which are in our, your or a third party’s legitimate interest;
  • For any purposes which are required or authorised by law;
  • To respond to requests by government, a court of law, or law enforcement authorities conducting an investigation;
  • For reporting, statistical, analytical, research and historical purposes;
  • For credit checking or credit reporting purposes (though a credit bureau), in order to assist Guardforce’s decision to provide services to you or to report on any slow or non-payment of your accounts with Guardforce to any third party;
  • Where you are applying for a job vacancy, to process your application throughout our recruitment process;
  • To improve our services and to manage our relationship with you, for example by asking for your feedback on the services you received from us or through the completion of a customer service satisfaction survey;
  • Where applicable, for general marketing and communication purposes, where you are a previous or existing customer of Guardforce or where we have received your consent to receive these communications, and in compliance with the provisions of POPIA. You will be given the opportunity to unsubscribe from any marketing communications, general communications and/or newsletters at any time, and with each communication received;
  • In relation to the use of our website, to identify, investigate and attend to any technical issues, support and user queries;
  • To detect, prevent or deal with any actual or alleged fraud, security breach, or the abuse, misuse or unauthorised use of the website and/or contravention of this Privacy Notice.
  • We may also collect, use, and/or generally process personal information or data that has been de-identified and/or aggregated, for example statistical or demographic data, for any purpose. Aggregated or de-identified data is not considered personal information in terms of POPIA, as this information is de-identified and does not, directly or indirectly, reveal your identity.

DISCLOSURE OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

We value and respect the confidentiality and privacy of the personal information that you entrust us with. We are not in the business of selling your personal information and we will not share or disclose your personal information to anyone except as provided in this Privacy Notice and/or any contracts or terms and conditions of Service concluded with us.

By engaging with us for the provision of our or your services, using our website, applying for a job vacancy with us, or for any other purpose that we collect your personal information for, you acknowledge and agree that we may share your personal information (including your special personal information, where applicable, relevant and necessary) in the following instances:

  • If it is necessary in order to provide you with a service that have you have requested or contracted us to provide or source on your behalf;
  • If it is in your, our or a third party’s legitimate interest;
  • If it is necessary for the proper performance of a public law duty by a public body;
  • If it is required or authorised by law;
  • If you have provided us with your consent to do so;
  • With our service providers (including our suppliers, subcontractors, affiliates, partners, agents and professional advisors), in order to provide you with our services, for reporting purposes or generally as required for the administration and management of our business. In these instances, we will ensure that the necessary security safeguards and confidentiality undertakings are in place to secure your personal information. We will only allow third parties to process your personal information for a specific purpose, in accordance with our instructions and in accordance with the requirements of POPIA and any other applicable data privacy laws;
  • With our employees, who may require that information to do their jobs;
  • With regulators and government authorities in connection with our compliance procedures and legal obligations;
  • With a purchaser or prospective purchaser of all or part of our assets or our business or the shares of our company (or any subsidiary company), and their professional advisers, in connection with the purchase;
  • With a third party, in order to enforce or defend our rights, or to address financial or reputational risks; or
  • for any other purpose permitted by POPIA.

SECURING YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Securing the personal information you give us, or that we receive about you, is a priority for Guardforce.

We take appropriate and reasonable technical and organisational security measures to protect the personal information that we process, in accordance with the requirements of POPIA.

 

HOW LONG WE RETAIN PERSONAL INFORMATION FOR

We will not retain your personal information longer than necessary. We will retain the personal information you provide to us or that we receive about you for as long as is needed to achieve the purpose that it was collected for, or for an extended period of time, even after the personal information is no longer needed to achieve the purpose that it was collected for, if the retention of your personal information records is:

  • required by law or any code of conduct;
  • required to meet regulatory requirements;
  • needed for evidentiary purposes, to resolve disputes, to prevent or investigate fraud and abuse, or to enforce any contract concluded with you;
  • reasonably required for lawful purposes that are related to Guardforce’s function, operations or activities;
  • determined necessary in accordance with our internal document retention and destruction policies;
  • required for historical, research or statistical purposes. In these circumstances we will take measures to de-identify this personal information as far as reasonably possible.

DIRECT MARKETING

Generally, Guardforce does not use personal information for direct marketing purposes. Any communications sent out by Guardforce for the purposes of direct marketing would however be done in compliance with the requirements of POPIA.

 

STORAGE AND TRANSFER OF YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION

Given the nature of our business, we may store both hard copy and electronic records containing personal information.

Hard copy personal information records may be stored at our secured facilities or premises in locked cabinets, or when archived, in our archive storage.

Electronic personal information records may be stored on Guardforce’s servers and/or on third party servers, including servers used for cloud-based software and applications used by Guardforce for the purposes of providing you with our services and for the administration and management of our business.

While Guardforce endeavours, as far as reasonably possible, to store your personal information locally in South Africa, we may be required to transfer to and/or store your personal information on servers located outside of South Africa. Guardforce may also have third party service providers that are located outside of South Africa, which may result in your personal information being transferred and processed outside of South Africa.

Guardforce will take reasonable and appropriate measures to ensure that any personal information, special personal information or children’s information (where applicable) that is transferred outside of the borders of South Africa is transferred in compliance with the requirements of POPIA and that an adequate level of privacy protection is in place between us and these third-party service providers.

 

PROCESSING OF SPECIAL PERSONAL INFORMATION

In certain limited instances, Guardforce may be required to collect and process special personal information, particularly in relation to the processing and reviewing of job applications.
Any special personal information that is required to be collected and processed by Guardforce will be done in compliance with the provisions of POPIA.

WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?

As a data subject, POPIA provides you with a number of rights in relation to how your personal information is used and processed. In terms of POPIA, you are entitled, in the prescribed manner and form, to:

  • request a copy of the personal information that we hold about you (subject to and in accordance with the provisions of the Promotion of Access to Information Act);
  • update the personal information you have given to us, in the event that the personal information is inaccurate or outdated;
  • request the correction, destruction or deletion of personal information we hold about you (where legally permissible and subject to our right not to correct or delete the personal information record in certain circumstances);
  • withdraw your consent for us to process your personal information, where your consent is the lawful basis upon which we have collected and are processing your personal information. In these circumstances, the lawfulness of our processing of this personal information before the withdrawal of your consent will not be affected, and where we are processing your personal information on another lawful basis (other than consent) our continued processing of your personal information on such other lawful basis or ground will not be affected by your withdrawal of consent;
  • object to your personal information being processed by us (on reasonable and lawful grounds), in instances where you have a legitimate reason to believe that we are not processing your personal information in accordance with the provisions of POPIA; and to
  • object to any processing of your personal information for the purpose of direct marketing by electronic communication, in the prescribed manner and form, or to unsubscribe from receiving any marketing or communication emails received from us by clicking the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email.

We will make commercially reasonable efforts to provide you reasonable access to any of your personal or other account information that we process and/or retain. In certain circumstances, such as when we are required retain or withhold the disclosure of certain personal information by law, we may not be able to provide you with access to all your personal information or we may not be able to change, rectify or delete your personal information at your request. In these circumstances, we will provide you with reasons as to why your request cannot be complied with.

COMPLAINTS

If you have a complaint about how we are processing your personal information, or if you wish to exercise any of your privacy rights, such as object to us processing your personal information or request the correction, deletion or destruction of any of the personal information records we hold about you please contact our Information Officer at merilyn@guardforce.co.za, in the first instance, so that we can resolve the complaint or attend to your request.

All requests need to be submitted on the prescribed forms, as set out in the POPIA Regulations:

The prescribed form for reporting complaints regarding the use or processing of your personal information by us, must be addressed on POPIA Regulations Form 1.

The prescribed form for requesting the correction, deletion or destruction of your personal information records by us, must be addressed on POPIA Regulations Form 2. You acknowledge that in some instances Guardforce may not be able to comply with your request to correct or delete your personal information, where this request conflicts with any applicable laws.

All requests for access to personal information records must be addressed on the form prescribed in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (“PAIA”). The prescribed form for requesting access to a record held by us is PAIA Regulations Form 3.

In terms of POPIA, you are also entitled to direct a compliant to the Office of the Information Regulator, South Africa, if you feel that your complaint has not been adequately addressed directly with us. Complaints to be addressed to the Information Regulator must be completed in the prescribed manner and form (on prescribed Form 5 Part II, as set out in the POPIA Regulations).

The Office of the Information Regulator may be contacted  on 010 023 5200 or at enquiries@inforegulator.org.za (general enquiries) or  POPIAComplaints@inforegulator.org.za (for POPIA complaints) or PAIAComplaints@inforgulator.org.za (for PAIA complaints).

Their website is: https://inforegulator.org.za/

 

CHANGES TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

Changes may need to be made to this Privacy Notice, from time to time. We will endeavour to only make changes to this Privacy Notice where they are material, necessary and/or required as a result of legislative or regulatory changes or guidance, or any code of conducts published that may be relevant to the industry in which our business operates.

Any changes made to this Privacy Notice will be posted through an updated Privacy Notice that is loaded onto this website page. Please check this page to keep informed of any updated or revised Privacy Notice that may be posted.

LAWS APPLICABLE TO THIS PRIVACY NOTICE

This Privacy Notice is governed by the laws of the Republic of South Africa, and you hereby consent to the jurisdiction of the South African courts in respect of any dispute which may arise out of or in connection with the formation, interpretation, substance or application of this Privacy Notice.